


Dealing with Reality - Scooby Gang vs. The Troika - BTVS Essay circ 2002

by shadowkat67



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Buffy the Vampire Slayer References, Episode Related, Essays, Gen, Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22343041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Summary: Written in 2002 and published on the fanboards in 2002 (Buffy Cross & Stake and APTOBTVS Boards.Spoilers are up to Entropy, S6 only.Analysis of how "Real Life" is the Bad Guy as represented by the Troika -- villains that represent geeky fanboys.
Kudos: 2
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Dealing with Reality - Scooby Gang vs. The Troika - BTVS Essay circ 2002

_"It's been a long road getting here. For you… for Sunnydale. There has been achievement, joy, good times,… and there has been grief. There's been loss. Some people who should be here today… aren't. But we are. - Journey's end. And what is a journey? Is it just… distance traveled? Time spent? No. It's what happens on the way, it the things that happen to you. At the end of the journey you're not the same. Today is about change. Graduation doesn't just mean your circumstances change, it means you do. You ascend… to a higher level. Nothing will ever be the same. Nothing."_ Mayor Wilkins in Graduation Day Part II (Season 3, Btvs)

After Graduation, the Scooby Gang did what most of us do - went to college where once again they had set rules and boundaries, they just traded the sheltered reality of high school for the sheltered reality of USC Sunnydale. Even Xander remained in this sheltered reality, by staying in his parents' basement. It wasn't until Season 5 that this reality truly began to break down and become something else. Buffy's mother died, she had to leave school, her boyfriend left , and she had a sister to take care of. Giles' reality changed in Season 4, he had no job and no true purpose outside of being a Watcher; he had blown up his old reality, the library. Xander's also changed, he'd lost Cordy and was starting a relationship with Anya, he had to find a job, a role in life, and a new apartment. By the end of Season 5 - Xander built a reality separate from school and from his friends and parents, or so Xander thought. Willow lost OZ and fell in love with a woman, she reinvented her sexual identity, stopped being roommates with Buffy and became more independent and adept at magic. Spike also had to reinvent himself, no longer able to eat humans, he learned how to rely on other sources for blood and discovered that he could beat up demons, so that by the end of Season 5, he had not only realized and confessed his love to Buffy but also began to aid the Scooby Gang in saving the world. At the end of Season 5, the characters reinvented themselves, got into established routines, and the Buffyverse made sense to them and their audience, even Buffy jumping from the tower to save the world made sense. She'd be brought back. We'd go back to the same routine. All was right with the world.

Yeah, right. I'm beginning to realize the moment I get comfortable is the moment the world decides to shift on me. Apparently the characters of BTVS have the same problem.

Fifteen years ago, a philosophy major I was dating, kept trying to convince me that we create our own reality. We control it, he said. No one else. We choose who to put inside it and what makes it up. I found his argument annoying at the time, because I felt the last thing I had control over was my reality.

In 2001 -2002 Btvs is all about controlling and creating your own reality. And in 2001, my reality shifted dramatically, everything I thought was true about my job, my career, my boss, my commute to work, my city, even my world changed. There was no safe place and I felt like I was careening off the side of an emotional cliff. The only cultural experience that echoed this feeling of emotional disorientation was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nothing else did. Nothing else does. Someone mentioned crying during ER, I'm sorry I didn't shed a tear. That show now seems incredibly false to me, not real. That is how drastically my reality shifted. Like the characters on our favorite show, I've been forced to reinvent myself and my reality this year, so I agree with Shell and her recent post on the B C &S board - what the writers are doing this year is truly brilliant and more realistic than anything else on TV - they are demonstrating how our reality shifts and how we have to adapt and handle these shifts. How we have to learn to actively participate in the construction of our reality instead of merely reacting to, bending, or ignoring it.

 **Life Serial (Season 6, Btvs)** succinctly explains:

>   
>  MIKE: Social Construction of Reality. Who can tell me what that is? Rachel.  
>  RACHEL: A concept involving a couple of opposing theories, one stressing the externality and independence of social reality from individuals. (Buffy looks confused)  
>  MIKE: And the flip side? (many hands raised) Steve?  
>  STEVE: That each individual participates fully in the construction of his or her own life.  
>  MIKE: Good, and who can expand on that? (hands) Chuck?  
>  CHUCK: Well, those on the latter side of the theoretical divide stress...  
>  BUFFY: (leans toward Willow and whispers) Will, I'm not following this too well.  
>  WILLOW: Oh. The trick is to get in the rhythm, kinda go with the flow. (raises her hand)  
>  BUFFY: Flow-going would be a lot easier if your classmates weren't such big brains.  
>  WILLOW: Buffy, that's ridiculous! They are no smarter than you or me.  
>  MIKE: (O.S.) Willow.  
>  WILLOW: (lowers hand, speaks to Mike) Because social phenomena don't have unproblematic objective existences. They have to be interpreted and given meanings by those who encounter them. (Buffy stares at Willow)  
>  MIKE: (O.S.) Nicely put. So, Ruby, does that mean there are countless realities?  
> 

Must admit, it took me a while to understand what this meant. I'm a bit like Buffy, slow on the uptake, at least that's the way I've been this year. How many times have our characters realities been shifted? In the first episode of Season 6, we enter Sunnydale where everyone, including Spike, is fighting demons together. The SG have included him and they all have a definite role in their makeshift family. When Dawn takes the Buffybot to parent teacher day, the first theory, stressing that social reality is external and independent from individuals is explored. In high school, we don't control or participate in the construction of our reality; our reality is constructed by our parents, teachers, and peer group. This is the reality of Seasons 1-4 of Btvs. The independent social reality is high school - individuals don't create it or actively participate in its creation, instead it controls the individual within it. The rules are black and white and fairly rigid. An example is the Styrofoam utopia with orange juice cars that Dawn's classmates have created and in which, the Buffybot notes, only tiny people can inhabit. The social reality that is independent of the influence of individuals finds the Buffybot an acceptable parent and reassuring presence. As Spike notes - "(Dawn's teachers) responded to BuffyBot because a robot is predictable. Boring. Perfect teacher's pet. That's all schools are, you know. Just factories, spewing out mindless little automatons. Who go on to be ... very ... valuable and productive members of society..." When our reality is determined solely by an external force, we act as cogs in a wheel, with clearly defined roles. In Adolus Huxley's Brave New World: everybody has an assigned role in society and reality is controlled not by the individuals but by the group governing them. In Huxely's novel the government keeps the individuals complacent with drugs and comforting television messages. They become in effect the "mindless automatons" Spike has described. In the pre-Bargaining spell reality -the SG have defined roles and the world makes sense.

Then, demons on bikes invade Sunnydale, Willow does her spell, the world of Sunnydale looks like hell, reality shifts. And Buffy? Buffy's essence is shifted from one reality (which we learn in Afterlife, was fairly pleasant, heavenly, and controlled by external forces) to another. Her initial response, was the same as mine,

 _BUFFY: Is this hell?_ (Bargaining, Part II)

Dawn insists it isn't and takes Buffy home. Except it is no longer the home Buffy remembers. It has changed. Willow and Tara now inhabit her mother's room. Willow's computer is in the kitchen. Giles is gone. Buffy feels completely disoriented, until Spike appears. Here, finally, is a constant she can deal with. He stands at the foot of the stairs in exactly the same position he was in the last time she was there. He has not changed. He wouldn't. Vampires remain arrested in their development, unchanging, ageless - at least on the outside. Is it any wonder that she drifts towards him the way someone adrift at sea might head towards a life raft? When the others enter the house, they all look different. Clothing. Hairstyles. We have switched to the theory of reality proposed by my ex-boyfriend: "each individual participates fully in the construction of his or her own life." When we leave high school and enter the "real world" - we are responsible for the construction of our reality, it is no longer constructed for us by our parents and teachers.

In Season 6, Btvs, Buffy and her friends are being forced to actively participate in the construction of their reality. Reality has shifted on them. Buffy's return shifts the balance in all of their lives including Buffy's as shown by the ghost in Afterlife, who visits each of them. Willow and Tara are almost broken apart in bed by crashing glass while the ghost rails against their use of magic to control reality. Anya tries to mutilate herself in Xander's presence. Dawn breaths fire on all of them and finally, Xander's unwittingly betrays them to the demonic ghost. We also have Spike and Xander's argument in front of the House where Xander accuses Spike of being an obsessive stalker and Spike accuses Xander of leaving him out of the loop - their relationship had apparently moved past this, but Buffy's reemergence in their lives shifts it back to where it was at the beginning of Season 5. And Giles is asked to return to Sunnydale as their impromptu guardian. Buffy's mere presence has altered the realities of all the Scoobies.

In the very next episode, _Flooded_ , **the Troika** are introduced, and from this point on - the Troika represent individuals who are not only participating in but also actively controlling reality, particularly the Scoobies'. At first their attempts appear fairly mundane. Willow's attempts to control reality are far more frightening as she weilds magic to bend reality to fit her vision of it. The Troika do the same thing, but not necessarily with magic. In every episode in which the Troika appear, they shift Buffy's reality. First they send a monster to her house. (Flooded) Then they manage to speed up her reality, introduce demons at her work place, and torment her with an endless time loop, which can only be exited when she figures out how to satisfy someone else's needs. Buffy only passes their tests - when she takes an active role in deciphering or interpreting the shifts in her perception of reality, particularly since each shift is merely a shift in her perception. Everyone else's perception remains unchanged. Once she takes an active role in interpreting and controlling her perception - her reality reverts to normal. At this point, Buffy is not actively participating in the construction of her reality she is letting others manipulate it. The only person she is comfortable with at this stage is Spike, because from her point of view, he's a constant from her old reality. Unchanging. Also he understands her difficulty dealing with the constant shifts. Of all her friends Spike has had to deal with the most shifts in her perception. He knows what it is like to wake up from a grave and discover the world is not the way you left it.

Poor Buffy is having troubles keeping up with the shifts. She has no clue what she should do next or who she is. Her true love, Angel, has moved on without her. She is bombarded with bills. Her friends have established lives outside of her. And slaying no longer has the same appeal. She feels adrift, as if she's just going through the motions in a world that feels increasingly hellish. Willow tells her that she just needs to get with the rhythm. Buffy has lost the beat. Her reality no longer makes sense to her. Her friends appear to have gone on ahead. As a result, she spends more time with Spike doing what she knows, patrolling. His world has not shifted or changed as far as she can tell. Demons still equal bad. Vampires still need to be staked. Except - Spike is a vampire and she is becoming sexually attracted to him. So even that dynamic is changing.

_"Social phenomena don't have unproblematic objective existences. They have to be interpreted and given meanings by those who encounter them."_

As we encounter each shift in our reality, we struggle to give it meaning, to understand it, and determine whether we should accept or reject our new perception of it. Controlling our reactions to shifts in reality is easier said then done, as each of the characters in Btvs discover. And each reaction or interpretation creates another perception of reality. So as a result there are countless realities or possible perceptions of reality.

1\. Reacting Negatively to Shifts in Reality. 

Xander and Anya are struggling to accurately perceive the continuous shifts in their reality - which revolves around their relationship. It doesn't help that they are both pessimists. For the past two years - their relationship has been the central focus of their reality. First their engagement is kept a secret by Xander. Then Xander decides to reveal the relationship and Anya takes control, suggesting they move the wedding from June to February (All The Way), she plans a big wedding with demons and family in attendance, but it does not go off as planned; Xander leaves her at the altar, regaining control. Anya comes back, attempts to regain control by cursing Xander - but fails, and sleeps with Spike instead. None of these shifts are caused by external forces - Xander and Anya are responsible for them. Each shift is caused by their negative or positive perceptions. They separately interpret and give meaning to each shift in reality.

Xander's perceptions of reality are clouded by fear. He deals with his perception by summoning a demon in _Once More With Feeling_ -in order to ensure a happy ending for himself and Anya. Instead - he causes people to combust and shifts the reality of everyone around him. Xander isn't in control of his reality, Captain fear is. If he was willing to accept the word of a demon regarding his and Anya's future in Once More With Feeling is it any wonder he accepts the word of a demon in Hells Bells? Xander who up until recently appeared to be actively participating in the construction of his reality, is letting a fear demon run the show. In As You Were - Xander keeps asking Riley and Sam about marriage -looking for outside reassurance regarding his own. By the time we reach Hell's Bells, Captain fear is in the driver's seat. All the vengeance demon has to do is show Xander his worst fears, which Xander perceives as the only outcome. The fact that it "could" be true is enough for him to call off the wedding. He sacrifices his current reality, the reality he spent so much time and effort constructing, on another interpretation of it, in this case, a demon's interpretation. He chooses to accept this interpretation over his own and in doing so betrays his own heart. How Anya chooses to interpret this betrayal is important. She interprets it as her fault. He left because she used to be demon. This interpretation not only betrays the humanity she's worked so hard to embrace, it causes her to revert back to her demon status. It doesn't stop there of course. Each negative interpretation of reality results in the actuality of that reality until Xander and Anya have literally destroyed everything they worked so hard to build, returning to their origins: the loser and the vengeance demon . It's how we choose to relate to and interpret what happens to us and around us that gives it meaning, that makes it real. In that way - we control our reality.

2\. Bending Reality to Fit our Own Ends: Willow and Tara have also been struggling with shifts in reality. 

They are in a better place right now - because Willow momentarily stopped trying to bend reality to her will. Tara rightly interpreted Willow's actions as an insecure attempt to make the world better for herself. The only problem is Willow and the rest of the Scoobies interpreted her use of magic as a merely an addiction. Please. If you thought this was a drug storyline -then the writers fooled you, because it never was - that was just how Willow and her friends chose to interpret it. It was never about addiction - Willow chose to interpret her abuse of magic as drug abuse. 'I do it because it makes me feel good.' Sorry, Willow - that isn't why you did the magic. You did the magic for the same reasons the Troika are doing what they're doing - you not only wanted to control your reality - you wanted to bend everyone else's to make it fit what was in your head. You still do.

There's an old Twilight Zone episode, _It's A Good Life_ \- that discusses the use of magic to bend reality and others realities to fit your own. In this episode, an insecure little boy has the ability to bend reality with his mind. Feeling unloved and unwanted by his family and friends, he bends their reality to match what's in his head. If they do not comply with his version of reality or protest - he sends them to a cornfield where they are killed. Reminds me of Willow's attempt in _All The Way_ to send people to alternate dimensions for fractions of a second to find Dawn. Willow, who also feels rejected and unwanted, bends the realities of the people around her to make herself feel better. As cjl pointed out in one of his posts - Willow is a pessimist, she can't believe life will ever turn out well - so she helps it along, makes it better. In _Bargaining_ \- she brings Buffy back. _All The Way_ \- she creates decorations and considers moving people to alternate dimensions to find Dawn, when Tara protests - she casts a spell that makes Tara forget. In Tabula Rasa - she casts a spell that wipes the memories of everyone including herself - out of fear of losing both Tara and Buffy. She can't deal with the fact that Buffy was torn from Heaven or Tara's anger at her - so she attempts to make them forget, and in the process bends their reality to match the one she prefers. She is the external force controlling their reality - not giving them the choice to react to it or give it their own meaning. It's not until she literally conjures a monster - that Willow stops attempting to bend reality to fit her own interests. Tara's leaving did not snap her out of it. Dawn's injury did. Willow's approach to handling shifts in reality is the same as the Troika's - I'll control it, it won't control me. Xander on the other hand, attempts to escape or run from his negative perceptions of reality. Both Xander and Willow are pessimists, both victims of abusive parents and peers. Neither character believes there will be a happy ending. Neither character trusts their perception of reality. So they either attempt to bend it to their will or run away from it.

3\. Ignoring or Denying Reality.

Buffy has spent most of this year ignoring reality or denying it and as a result it is controlling her instead of the other way around. I identify with her - because I am equally guilty of letting external factors control my reality, ignoring that which I can't handle, hoping it will just go away. How many of us let someone else or something else affect our moods, our feelings, our actions? We don't choose our destinies, we let external factors such as money, parents, teachers or friends choose them for us. We abdicate responsibility to someone or something else. Part of growing up is learning how to choose our own reality, to control it, by moving away from home, finding new friends, locating a job. In _Life Serial_ \- Giles asks Buffy what she wants to do with her life, what path she wishes to take, how she wants to reconstruct her reality. She truthfully responds that she has no clue. In fact towards the end of the episode she requests that Spike fix her reality. Spike misinterprets her request to mean that she wants to create a new one with him. But no - that would mean active participation -Buffy at this stage just wants someone else to do the work, whether that be Giles, her Mom, her friends, or Spike.

_JONATHAN VOICEOVER: The Slayer always knows what she's doing. Sharp. Decisive. Always with a plan.. _(Life Serial, Season 6, Btvs).__

__Maybe in the past - but this season Buffy has been anything but sharp, decisive or with a plan. Last year she had accepted her hands - symbolically Dawn and Spike - they were together, they had place in her life, which she clearly defined for them. She had accepted her role as the slayer. This year she jumps between Dawn and Spike like a ping pong ball with no clear direction, rejecting or embracing one or the other without much thought for the consequences. As a result, she appears to be detached, confused, directionless, just going through the motions. I disagree with Om and other posters - when they state Buffy is back in _Entropy_. Nope. Sorry. She's still unbalanced and if anything weaker than ever. All she's done is shift from the left hand (Spike) to the right (Dawn). Notice who's an emotional mess in Entropy and who appears to be relatively calm and supportive? (Violent/Off the rails Spike - calm understanding Dawn) Notice who was going nuts in _Older and Far Away, Wrecked_ and _All The Way_ and who appeared relatively calm? (Whiney/Thieving Dawn - calm supportive Spike.) Also which episodes is Buffy physically strong in and which is she physically weak in? In _Entropy_ , Buffy barely defeats those two vampires and it took her way too long to figure out Warren was behind the camera. Yet she's wonderful with Dawn, takes her shopping, reveals her secrets. While in _Dead Things_ and _As You Were_ \- she had no troubles fighting the Beasties, but could barely relate to Dawn. The only thing that's changed for Buffy is the witty one liners, which for some reason comfort the audience as much as the character - but it's just a defense mechanism, one that relates back to high school, which she and Xander have in common. It's not the only one. They appear to be handling reality in a similar manner. Letting it control them. And when things get nasty? Crack a joke. It lightens the mood, but it doesn't change the reality. They are about to discover that there are some things you can't joke about. That they are no longer in high school._ _

__The Troika has succeeded is controlling Buffy and by extension the Scoobies' reality this year. Every episode in which they appear they manage to do something that shifts her reality out of focus or creates a new one. In _Gone_ , they make Buffy invisible. In _Dead Things_ , they successfully convince her that she killed someone. In _Normal Again_ , they make her insane. And finally in _Entropy_ , they inadvertently convince her that her ex- lover is spying on her, causing an even greater rift to erupt between Buffy and her left hand, weakening her further. Buffy and by extension the SG have become the Troika's puppets, jumping at the Troika's whim. Not once have they taken these nerdy villains seriously. So as a result the villains control their perception of reality, not the SG._ _

__It didn't surprise me that Buffy and Xander jumped to the conclusion that Spike was behind the camera - because let's face it, Spike's an amoral opportunistic demon and the Troika are human. Even after Spike denies it, Xander is still fairly convinced it's him and not the nerds. This interpretation fits with their old high school interpretation of reality - where the world had rules and boundaries and an end zone. Xander just can't take the nerds seriously. Poor Spike - external forces have shifted his reality so many times that I've lost track. First the wheel chair, then Dru dumping him, then the chip, then falling in love with Buffy, then Buffy dying, then Buffy being brought back, then entering a sexual relationship. He hasn't been in charge for quite a while. Gotta give the vamp credit for adapting. After working so hard to reinvent himself as a helpmate to the SG and as Buffy's left hand man, confidante, protector of Dawn, and occasional lover - it's all being shifted on him again this time by Buffy. She has turned him into a sideshow freak that no one takes seriously and everyone emotionally, mentally and physically abuses. Spike is no longer in control of his reality, Buffy is at the wheel and the Troika is manipulating Buffy. Is it any wonder that poor Spike is about to go off the deep end? Unlike Buffy and Xander - Spike prefers to create his own reality - bend it to his liking. He can't be happy with the fact that he's no longer in control here - Buffy is. I suspect he will make at least one pathetic and incredibly violent attempt to re-assert control. Just as Anya made a pathetic attempt to re-assert control over her relationship with Xander. Like Anya, he'll fail of course and his failure will send him reeling. By the way that's usually the motive behind acts of extreme violence -attempt to regain control. Willow did it to Tara in _All The Way_ and _Tabula Rasa_ , Anya tries to do it to Xander in _Entropy_ , Spike will try in _Seeing Red_. In Spike's case - he's attempting to regain control of his reality, which he perceives Buffy as wrenching from him. It's interesting that of the three - Willow appears to be the only one who accomplished it and was later forgiven._ _

__Right now, Warren is the only character who appears to be in control of his reality and everyone else's. Warren plays with the other characters like you play with characters in a virtual reality X-box game, which reminds me of an episode of **Star Trek the Next Generation (STNG)**. In an episode from the second season of STNG, a holo-deck character, Professor Moriarty, becomes aware that his reality is just a computer program and attempts to wrest control of the program from the Enterprise crew along with control of the starship. Moriarty wants to venture beyond the confines of the program's reality and actually control his perception of it. The crew tricks the character into another portion of the computer so that the character perceives a new reality. Even if they never open the program - this character's reality will continue to exist within the universe of the small box they've placed him. At the end of the episode, the Captain wonders: "What if we just exist within a small box and if so, how many realities are out there in similar boxes watching each other and how do we know which one is real?" This concept has been explored in at least two sci-fi films: The Thirteenth Floor, where the characters of a virtual reality program create their own program within a program within a program. And, of course, The Matrix, where mechanical beasts enslave humans by convincing them that the reality they imagine is the real one. BTvs explores the concept in _Normal Again_._ _

__In **Normal Again** \- the Troika poison Buffy, so that she spends the entire episode jumping between two separate realities - the reality of the asylum and the reality of Sunnydale. By the end of the episode neither Buffy nor the audience is certain which is real. Buffy does not appear to be in control of either reality. Although, in the asylum reality, she is told over and over again that she is in complete control of the Sunnydale reality. That she can end it at any time and controls all of the characters. While in the asylum reality she clearly has no control at all - she is drugged, sedated and placed in a straight jacket. Therefore she believes the asylum must be the real one - because of the two realities, she has the least control over it. The Doctor states: "(Buffy's) created an intricate latticework to support her primary delusion. In her mind, she's the central figure in a fantastic world beyond imagination. She's surrounded herself with friends, most with their own superpowers ... who are as real to her as you or me. More so, unfortunately. Together they face ... grand overblown conflicts against an assortment of monsters both imaginary and rooted in actual myth. Every time we think we're getting through to her, more fanciful enemies magically appear." According to the doctor, Buffy is in complete control of the slayer world or Sunnydale. The characters that inhabit that world are her creation. Without her, Sunnydale ceases to exist. Or does it? Does the asylum world cease to exist if she refuses to remain there? Does Sunnydale? Or can realities we create inside our heads exist separately from us? If we leave them, do the characters take control? Spike wonders this very thing when he helps Xander hunt down the demon that poisoned her:__

> ___  
> SPIKE: So, she's having the wiggins, is she? Thinks none of us are real. Bloody self-centered, if you ask me. On the other hand, it might explain some things -- this all being in that twisted brain of hers. Yeah. Thinks up some chip in my head. Make me soft, fall in love with her, then turn me into her soddin' sex slave-  
>  XANDER: What?!  
>  SPIKE: Nothing. Alternative realities. Where we're all little figments of Buffy's funny-farm delusion. You know, in a different reality, you might not have left your bride at the altar. You might have gone through with it like a man. (Normal Again, Season 6 Btvs).  
>  _

__Spike's remarks remind me of the Pirandello play, _Six Characters in Search of An Author_. In this play - the characters discover they aren't real or in control. Fighting writers' block - the author leaves them, telling them that they are now in control of their reality, because he's run out of ideas. At first they react with fear and consternation, then slowly they start to adapt and enact their own story. Buffy appears to be doing the same thing with her friends and by extension Dawn and Spike. She's done it before, by sacrificing her life to save the world. Who brings her back - Willow and Xander, just as they are the ones who work to bring her back from the asylum. Willow and Xander cannot live in a world without Buffy, even if she was happier elsewhere. Dawn and Spike, interestingly enough, do not try to bring her back. In Bargaining they are left out of the loop. In Normal Again - they help but they do not force her to drink. Spike even leaves her alone to do whatever she wishes. They both get fed up with her inability to accept them and leave. Or at least attempt to - Buffy manages to stop Dawn and attempts to kill her, thus removing her from the reality. Spike leaves on his own, fed up with her reluctance to see him. Spike has figured out that it's not their sexual relationship that's killing her, but her inability to accept responsibility for it, to admit her feelings whatever they are. As long as she doesn't tell her friends, as long as her friends do not perceive it as real, she can ignore it, bury it under the rug. She doesn't have to admit its existence. She can erase it and Spike from her reality. Buffy handles negative shifts in her reality by denying them. You don't exist she tells her friends and Dawn in Normal Again. What we had isn't real to me she tells Spike in Entropy. As she explains to Dawn, when her relationship with Spike is revealed, "I just didn't want to admit to myself." (Entropy) True - she didn't. By denying her reality - the external forces shaping her reality begin to assert control. I learned this lesson long ago, the more I attempted to ignore my younger brother - the more he'd scream in my ear. He was real. Ignoring him did not change that. What has Buffy ignored this year? Willow's use of magic. Dawn and her stealing until it erupted in _Older and Far Away_. Spike's feelings for her. The Troika. Instead of dealing with these elements - confronting them, interpreting them and giving them meaning, she has tried to ignore them like a child who believes if she ignores her chores they will go away._  
_

__Remember what Willow states in Life Serial? _"Social phenomena don't have unproblematic objective existences. They have to be interpreted and given meanings by those who encounter them."_ Buffy has avoided doing just that - instead of attempting to understand and contructively deal with the social phenomena she has encountered or that has entered her reality - she has ignored it. Buffy, of all people, should know how dangerous that is. In this sense - Buffy has become Joyce, who managed to repress and ignore every supernatural problem that entered Buffy's life. It wasn't until she lost Buffy in _Becoming Part II, Season 2 Btvs_ that Joyce's perception of reality shifted._ _

__Up until now, external forces have controlled our character's perceptions of reality. What happens when they begin to take responsibility and control? Isn't part of growing up learning how to actively participate in our society? To move out on our own? Figure out our own way in life? Create our own reality? But in order to do this, we must first perceive our reality, interpret it for ourselves. No longer rely on our parents, teachers, or classmates interpretations. It's our interpretations that count, not the external one's . We are responsible for and in control of how we perceive and react to reality. Part of growing up is understanding and handling that. Once we do we will never be the same nor for that matter will the characters of Btvs._ _


End file.
